Infatuation, not love (yet)

What this means

Infatuation is a genuinely powerful state, and the first thing worth saying is that what you are feeling is real — the intensity is not imaginary or foolish. Infatuation activates many of the same brain systems involved in addiction, which is exactly why it can feel like you cannot think straight, cannot eat, cannot quite live without this person. That force is part of what makes it so convincing. But the particular pattern you described points more toward infatuation than toward love: high passion and intensity paired with lower closeness, less stability, or a strong undercurrent of anxiety about losing them.

This is not a verdict against the relationship, and it is not a reason for shame. Infatuation is often where love begins. Sometimes it deepens into the real thing as you come to know the actual person behind the projection. Sometimes it does not. The honest truth is that, this early, the feeling itself cannot tell you which way it will go — the intensity is identical in both cases.

There is, though, one fairly reliable way to tell them apart over time. Love grows with knowledge of the real person: the more you learn about who they actually are — their habits, their moods, their unglamorous moments — the more your feeling deepens. Infatuation tends to do the opposite. It often fades precisely when the real person shows up and disrupts the idealised image you have been responding to. Love is fed by reality; infatuation is frequently starved by it.

So the question is not whether your feelings are real — they plainly are. The question is what they are attached to: the actual human being, or a compelling picture of them. That is not something you can settle by introspection alone. It reveals itself slowly, through ordinary time spent with the unedited version of them, and through honest attention to what you find there.

What to do next

Spend more time with them in distinctly unglamorous contexts — sick days, dull errands, a tense family dinner, the moments when nobody is performing. Notice whether your feelings hold up when this person is tired, ordinary, or at less than their best. Infatuation tends to need the highlight reel; love can sit comfortably in the unremarkable parts.

Then turn some of that same honest attention on yourself. Ask whether you are feeling love for this specific person, or the sheer relief of finally not being alone. Those two can feel almost identical from the inside, but they lead to very different places — one toward a real bond, the other toward attaching hard to whoever happened to fill the space.

There is no rush to reach a verdict. Let reality accumulate and trust what it shows you over weeks, not what the intensity insists on in a single charged moment. If you want help telling the genuine feeling apart from the wanting-it-to-be-true, Lovon is there to talk it through without pushing you toward any particular answer.